This Week's Rankings

Thank you all for your comments- I really appreciate all the feedback.

I would like to respond to one question I received regarding the Week 6 college basketball rankings. After big victories at home against Michigan State and Maryland, most Eagle fans expected to jump into the Top 25. At the very least, there was an expectation that we would leapfrog the victims.

Much to my own displeasure, neither of these expectations were fulfilled.

In the ESPN/USA Today poll, Michigan State was ranked 23 with 74 votes and Maryland dropped out of the group with 50 votes. Intuition would suggest BC must be ranked in the Top 20. After receiving only 5 votes, however, the Eagles remain on the outside looking in.

A similar story in the AP Poll, where BC's 30 votes were outdone by MSU and Maryland's 52 and 40, respectively.

Rankings don't always make sense, which explains why college football will not have a decisive victor in the foreseeable future and why Boston College is still only considered a "New Ivy" (Newsweek). If the pollsters had the vision that I have, things would be different.

In the meantime, we can try to justify their logic:

Michigan State does have an impressive win over Texas on its resume, along with a decisive victory over the northeastern powerhouse, Vermont (who came into our house and swallowed our pride without chewing). Their only other loss was the doing of a very competent Maryland team on the road.

Maryland fell short against Notre Dame, but did take down the aforementioned Spartans and Catamounts.

As for Boston College- we have two embarrassing losses and two solid victories. Critics would contend that our victories came at home, which plays a very important role in college hoops. I would argue that many of our fans are immune from the ACC fever, and playing at home is more embarrassing for our boys than inspiring.

In any case, the season is very young, and our early missteps have caused the Eagles to re-evaluate their priorities and goals for the season. At this point, the team will benefit from flying under the radar, and Boston College will continue to progress. Hopefully, we won't need to have this conversation in March, when we are poised to make a run.

Life is good in Eagle Country, and a new football coach is about to come watch over the nest...